PROHIBITION 

AS  A 

PROMOTER  OF  PROSPERITY 

FROM  A MANUFACTURER’S 
POINT  OF  VIEW 

‘By  COLONEL  PATRICK  HENRY  CALLAHAN 

Manufacturer  and  Employer  of  Louisville,  Ky. 

Formerly  President  of  the  National  Pmnt,  Oil  and  Varnish  Association 


Address  delivered  at  the 

Congress  of  the  World  League  Against  Alcoholism 
Winona  Lake,  Indiana 
August  ig,  ig2y 


THE  AMERICAN  ISSUE  PRESS 
WESTERVILLE.  OHIO 


PROHIBITION  AS  A PROMOTER 
OF  PROSPERITY 

FROM  A MANUFACTURER’S  POINT  OF  VIEW 

I have  just  come  from  a dinner  where  twenty-five  or  thirty  of  us  Ken- 
tuckians got  together,  as  Kentuckians  do,  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Graham, 
the  Anti-Saloon  League  Superintendent  of  our  state,  and  at  the  close  of  the 
dinner  we  sang  the  old  song,  “The  Moon  Shines  No  Longer  on  the  Kentucky 
Home,”  It  has  been  said  of  us  prohibitionists  that  we  are  long  of  face  and 
^tern  of  character,  and  that  we  have  none  of  the  sweetness  of  life.  On  the 
contrary,  when  I think  of  the  battles,  and  embittered  battles,  that  we  have 
been  through  during  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years,  it  is  astonishing  that  we  are 
able  to  retain  these  days  our  usual  abundance  of  good  humor. 

As  my  dear  friend.  Bishop  Nicholson,  has  told  you,  I come  from  Ken- 
tucky and  the  metropolis  of  the  state,  and  I have  seen  the  remarkable  degree 
of  prosperity  that  prohibition  has  brought  to  my  city.  Furthermore,  he  has 
told  you  of  my  having  been,  a few  years  ago,  president  of  the  second  largest 
business  association  of  the  countrj'.  Therefore,  I think  I can  speak  with 
some  experience  on  this  matter  of  prosperity,  on  this  matter  of  flourishing 
business,  and  how  much  prohibition  is  responsible  for  this  prosperity.  Pros- 
perity, as  you  perhaps  know,  does  not  apply  to  all  classes  at  the  same  time. 
We  have  had  in  this  country  for  the  last  four  or  five  years  a great  degree  of 
prosperity  for  certain  classes,  including  the  iron  industries  and  almost  all  the 
urban  industries.  On  the  other  hand,  mining  and  those  employed  in  mines, 
either  coal  or  mineral,  and  farm  labor  and  farmers  themselves,  have  had  no 
prosperity  except  in  small  spots.  But  industry  has  been  prosperous  in  a marked 
degree  ever  since  the  introduction  of  prohibition. 

Very  close  estimates  could  be  made  of  the  amount  of  money  spent  for 
intoxicating  liquor  before  the  time  of  prohibition.  We  had  our  Internal  Reve- 
nue Department  and  we  had  the  state  returns  as  well,  and  we  estimate  that 
for  liquor  of  all  kinds  there  was  apirroximately  five  billions  of  dollars  spent 
annually.  Professor  Fisher  of  Yale  estimates  the  former  expenditure  for  liquor 
to  be  nearly  si.x  billion  dollars,  but  we  'will  just  consider  the  lesser  amount 
of  five  billions.  Five  billion  dollars  or  even  four  billions  actualy  saved  out 
of  the  five  bilions  formerly  spent  on  liquor,  and  added  to  the  usual  purchasing 
power  of  the  nation,  will  go  a long  way  toward  making  the  “wheels  go  spin- 
ning,” as  we  business  men  say.  To  say  four  billion  dollars  of  a saving  is  very 
conservative,  and  when  this  sum  of  money  is  put  into  circulation  for  not  only 
necessities  but  those  luxuries  and  things  that  go  toward  a better  form  of  liv- 
ing, it  is  going  to  mean  a great  deal  of  prosperity  for  all  these  lines  of  trade 
and  traffic.  This  prosperity  also  reflects  itself  directly  and  indirectly  in  all 
other  lines  of  business  and  professional  activity. 

Those  people  who  make  a study  of  economics  sometimes  differ  as  to  what 
is  the  cause  of  prosperity.  There  is  one  school,  the  conservative  kind,  or 
rather  the  thought  that  prevailed  a hundred  years  ago,  that  if  the  upper  class,  or 
nowadays,  the  finance  or  money  interests,  were  prosperous  that  would  of  itself 
expand,  it  would  make  investments  and  bring  returns,  give  employment  and 


additional  employment,  and  that  general  prosperitj"  would  prevail  therefrom. 
The  other  school  of  thought  says  that  when  the  farmers  have  fine  crops  and 
the  workers  in  the  factories  and  the  mines  get  good  wages,  they  produce  a 
purchasing  power  and  make  profits  for  the  financier  in  just  the  reverse  of  the 
above.  I believe  nowadays  most  of  the  economists  have  concluded  that  you 
can  not  have  .general  prosperity  very  long  unless  there  is  a general  prosperity 
among  the  masses  where  the  bulk  of  the  purchasing  begins. 

During  the  last  several  years,  all  workers  but  the  miners  and  the  farmers 
liave  been  prosperous.  Farm  labor  is  now  down  to  twenty  millions  of  our 
population  and  more  than  70%  of  our  population  is  dependent  on  industr}', 
business  and  transportation,  and  either  by  compulsory  methods  of  prohibition 
or  personal  desire  we  have  now  adopted  a type  of  thrift  or  saving  that  has  put 
money  into  savings  banks,  into  building  and  loan  societies,  in  seven  years, 
to  the  equivalent  of  the  previous  twenty-seven  years  before.  We  all  known  it 
is  not  human  nature  for  all  of  us  to  save  mmney.  I believe  for  every  dollar 
that  has  been  saved,  ten  dollars  have  been  spent,  which  is  a very  conserva- 
tive calculation.  This  money  has  been  spent  in  moving  pictures,  radio  equip- 
ment, entertainments  at  home,  better  and  more  expensive  forms  of  dressing, 
and  certainly  there  have  been  improvements  in  the  sanitary  and  hygienic  form 
of  living  in  America  in  the  last  seven  j^ears  that  have  put  all  the  plumbing 
fixtures  people  ahead,  doubling  their  business  everywhere  for  the  last  seven 
years.  With  the  good  wages  of  today,  which  are  twice  the  wages  of  seven 
years  ago,  a portion  of  the  same  put  in  the  bank  and  a much  larger  portion  ex- 
pended, you  may  naturally  expect  to  see  stores  prospering  and  all  forms  of  in- 
dustries that  make  products  that  go  into  home  life,  advertising,  selling,  and 
prospering. 

The  American  people  and  the  working  people,  especially  now,  have  a fash- 
ion of  living  that  is  all  their  own  in  comfort,  sanitation  and  hygiene,  spending 
money  for  entertainment  and  amusement,  the  like  of  which  was  never  dreamed 
of  in  other  countries  and  by  previous  generations.  That  in  turn  has  brought 
about  a wonderful  purchasing  power  that  causes  a prosperous,  flourishing  con- 
dition in  this  countrj"  of  ours.  Just  the  other  day  the  Brotherhood  engineers 
of  this  country  on  only"  the  Eastern  lines  were  given  an  advance  of  six  mil- 
lion dollars  in  their  wages,  which  is  the  estimate  for  only  one  year.  Every- 
body who  is  studying  economics  realizes  that  that  means  six  more  million 
dollars  to  go  into  building  and  loans  and  savings  banks,  although  perhaps  nine 
out  of  ten  of  those  dollars  will  be  spent  for  additional  luxuries,  additional  im- 
provements in  living,  and  being  spent  largely  in  the  cities,  of  course,  it  will 
bring  additional  prosperity  to  the  cities  and  their  factories  and  employees.  Iii 
Louisville.  Kentucky,  we  have  seen  this  very  great  improvement  in  business 
and  the  professions.  There  was  a time  when  whisky,  as  has  been  said  by  me. 
was  to  Louisville  what  motor  cars  are  now  to  Detroit,  or  steel  to  Pittsburgh. 
It  was  just  as  much  a part  of  our  fabric  of  finance  and  our  social  structure. 
There  were  29  distilleries,  one  of  them  m.aking  400  barrels  of  whisky  a day. 
But  we  now  have  a city  with  varied  industries  that  give  steady  employment 
and  pay  fine  wages  and  in  five  years  of  prohibition  we  have  showed  as  much 
growth  in  population  and  building  as  during  the  previous  fifty  years. 

Prohibition,  Prosperity,  Peace  and  Plenty-  go  hand  in  hand. 


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